IMM wrote:

"Paul Mc Cann" wrote in message
...

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 08:58:45 +0100, "harrogate"
wrote:


"Doctor D." wrote in message
...

They will mix just fine, and it will have no adverse effects on
your car (it's a diesel, how much worse can it get anyway??).

I thought this too until I actually tried one. Take a Golf 130 TDi,

Megane

120 DCi or Focus 115 TDCi for a spin and eat your words!



I can never understand why the (so-called) motoring journalists of this
world - Clarkson and all that lot - always promote the idea that running

a

diesel is all about thrift and low fuel consumption.

Anyone who regularly drives a diesel will tell you this is far from the
case - it's all about laziness, not have to change gear to accelerate,

not

having to change gear to go around corners, being able to pull away

easily

on ice or snow when the petrolheads are spinning their wheels like
crazy................... and so it goes on. Diesel is all about torque at
low revs and flexibility - provided you don't want to do it in

microseconds!

Having had diesel company cars for the last decade I find it difficult to

go

back to driving a petrol car again - I keep having to work pedals and

move

the gear lever. It's only because of our stupid taxation system that puts
the cost of diesel so high over here that stops diesel cars selling

more -

you only have to go across the channel to see the truth of that!.


Well any diesel I have driven, including BMW's finest., all felt like
they had to be rowed along on the gearbox. The low end torque that is
talked about never manifested itself in my presence.

What I really don't understand is why peoplr who buy diesel engined
cars then procedd to drive the sh-one-t out of them. What are they
trying to prove ?


I find that when you start to accelerate and drive quick in turbo diesels
the fuel consumption rockets, far more than the equiv petrol




I guess you haven't driven many turboed or supercharged petrol engines
then :-)


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Huge wrote:
Chris Hodges writes:

tim wrote:

Diesel engines are inherently dirty - ever sat behind a brand
new diesel being floored? Big cloud of black smoke.

My feeling exactly.


No smoke comes out of the back of my car.

Agreed, it sounds like a bag of nails, but no smoke.

If you floor a diesel (esp turbo) you get black smoke initally, then it
normally clears. That's visible. Petrol cars chuck out NOx, which you
can't see, but isn't much better from the point of view of pollution.
Basically there's not a lot in it,


Except that that smoke is coated with the most potent carcinogen yet
discovered...

True, it is carcinogenic, as are many other things - I would be
surprised if it ranks very high in the list of potency though.

However when driving moderately you don't get any smoke from a diesel
unless there's something wrong with it. I do ~250 miles/week in mine,
and it's an unusual week in which I pull away hard enough to get any
smoke, even once.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, much of the NOx from a petrol engine
is now dealt with by the cat, but how many not-cat petrol cars are still
around?

--
Chris
-----
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IMM wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

IMM wrote:


"Grunff" wrote in message
...


IMM wrote:



I agree. They get better after being run in a bit, BUT they all need
some form of exhaust treatment. I have noticed - because I don't do it
often, that If I tackle the M25 in teh daytime, I end up with a
headache, and asthma and a post nasal drip and a raw throat and a

cough.

That conforms my assumption. You are a basket case.


[English lessons for IMM. 1:]

"confirms" would make sense in this sentence, but "conforms"
doesn't.


How do you know?


Because he is educated, rather than opinionated.


How do you know?



That is something only an educated person can understand.

You cannpt explain red to a blind man...




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IMM wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

IMM wrote:


"Paul Mc Cann" wrote in message
...


On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 08:58:45 +0100, "harrogate"
wrote:



"Doctor D." wrote in message
...


They will mix just fine, and it will have no adverse effects on
your car (it's a diesel, how much worse can it get anyway??).


I thought this too until I actually tried one. Take a Golf 130 TDi,


Megane


120 DCi or Focus 115 TDCi for a spin and eat your words!




I can never understand why the (so-called) motoring journalists of this
world - Clarkson and all that lot - always promote the idea that

running

a


diesel is all about thrift and low fuel consumption.

Anyone who regularly drives a diesel will tell you this is far from the
case - it's all about laziness, not have to change gear to accelerate,


not


having to change gear to go around corners, being able to pull away


easily


on ice or snow when the petrolheads are spinning their wheels like
crazy................... and so it goes on. Diesel is all about torque

at

low revs and flexibility - provided you don't want to do it in


microseconds!


Having had diesel company cars for the last decade I find it difficult

to

go


back to driving a petrol car again - I keep having to work pedals and


move


the gear lever. It's only because of our stupid taxation system that

puts

the cost of diesel so high over here that stops diesel cars selling


more -


you only have to go across the channel to see the truth of that!.


Well any diesel I have driven, including BMW's finest., all felt like
they had to be rowed along on the gearbox. The low end torque that is
talked about never manifested itself in my presence.

What I really don't understand is why peoplr who buy diesel engined
cars then procedd to drive the sh-one-t out of them. What are they
trying to prove ?


I find that when you start to accelerate and drive quick in turbo

diesels

the fuel consumption rockets, far more than the equiv petrol

I guess you haven't driven many turboed or supercharged petrol engines
then :-)


I have driven many turbo diesels. To get the equiv. performance to normal
petrol engine you need a turbo. Floor a turbo diesel and the fuel
consumption rockets, floor a normal petrol and it doesn't. So much for
diesel economy.




Bollox. My petrol will do 6 miles to the gallon if floored. The diesel
does at least 10.


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IMM wrote:

"Chris Hodges" wrote in message
...

Huge wrote:

Chris Hodges writes:


tim wrote:


Diesel engines are inherently dirty - ever sat behind a brand
new diesel being floored? Big cloud of black smoke.

My feeling exactly.


No smoke comes out of the back of my car.

Agreed, it sounds like a bag of nails, but no smoke.

If you floor a diesel (esp turbo) you get black smoke initally, then it
normally clears. That's visible. Petrol cars chuck out NOx, which you
can't see, but isn't much better from the point of view of pollution.
Basically there's not a lot in it,


Except that that smoke is coated with the most potent carcinogen yet
discovered...

True, it is carcinogenic, as are many other things - I would be
surprised if it ranks very high in the list of potency though.

However when driving moderately you don't get any smoke from a diesel
unless there's something wrong with it. I do ~250 miles/week in mine,
and it's an unusual week in which I pull away hard enough to get any
smoke, even once.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, much of the NOx from a petrol engine
is now dealt with by the cat, but how many not-cat petrol cars are still
around?


Few and far between. CATs have been standard since the early 1990s. How
many cars over 10 years ld do you see around? In booming Britain, not many
is there.



I've got two...plus two 4-stroke lawnmowers and two 2-sroke garden tools.

Plus a non cat diesel.


Only the other two cars are 'catted'.



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"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

Few and far between. CATs have been standard since the early 1990s.
How
many cars over 10 years ld do you see around? In booming Britain, not
many
is there.

I've got two...plus two 4-stroke lawnmowers and two 2-sroke garden tools.


Plus a non cat diesel.

Only the other two cars are 'catted'.

You are a one household pollution machine.


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"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

I have driven many turbo diesels. To get the equiv. performance to
normal
petrol engine you need a turbo. Floor a turbo diesel and the fuel
consumption rockets, floor a normal petrol and it doesn't. So much for
diesel economy.

Bollox. My petrol will do 6 miles to the gallon if floored. The diesel
does at least 10.

I'm talking about real cars.


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IMM wrote:

"Chris Hodges" wrote in message
...
IMM wrote:

"geoff" wrote in message
...

In message , IMM
writes

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...

On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 10:10:43 UTC, "IMM" wrote:


Efficiency? A mute word here.

But unfortunately you are not mute.

(Hint: the word is 'moot')

I know; spell checker.


How so exactly ? - a spell checker would recognise both "mute" and
"moot"


The original word was misspelt. Duh!!

What did you type then - mout?

Probably.

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All this discussion about "moot" or "mute' should be silenced as
not appropriate to this forum. The original intent/meaning was
clear.
Perhaps the debaters could quieten down or take themselves off to
some other forum such as
inevermakespellingmistakes.uselesselessdiscussion. somewhere !

"Terry" wrote in message
...
IMM wrote:

"Chris Hodges" wrote in message
...
IMM wrote:

"geoff" wrote in message
...

In message , IMM

writes

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...

On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 10:10:43 UTC, "IMM"
wrote:


Efficiency? A mute word here.

But unfortunately you are not mute.

(Hint: the word is 'moot')

I know; spell checker.


How so exactly ? - a spell checker would recognise both "mute" and
"moot"


The original word was misspelt. Duh!!

What did you type then - mout?

Probably.

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All this discussion about "moot" or "mute' should be silenced as
not appropriate to this forum.

They should be mute.


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All this discussion about "moot" or "mute' should be silenced as
not appropriate to this forum.

They should be mute.

That's a moot point.

Christian.

IMM wrote:
As has been pointed out elsewhere, much of the NOx from a petrol engine
is now dealt with by the cat, but how many not-cat petrol cars are still
around?


Few and far between. CATs have been standard since the early 1990s. How
many cars over 10 years ld do you see around? In booming Britain, not many
is there.

I would say OTTOMH ~5-10%. My wife's car is an H-reg 205, when cats
were still unusual, and so has dire warnings in the book not to use leaded.

This is the first cat-equipped petrol car we've had.

Don't forget that cats only work properly when warm, and many if not
most journeys are oo short for that.

--
Chris
-----
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"Chris Hodges" wrote in message
...
IMM wrote:
As has been pointed out elsewhere, much of the NOx from a petrol engine
is now dealt with by the cat, but how many not-cat petrol cars are still
around?


Few and far between. CATs have been standard since the early 1990s.
How
many cars over 10 years ld do you see around? In booming Britain, not
many
is there.

I would say OTTOMH ~5-10%. My wife's car is an H-reg 205, when cats
were still unusual, and so has dire warnings in the book not to use
leaded.

This is the first cat-equipped petrol car we've had.

Don't forget that cats only work properly when warm, and many if not
most journeys are oo short for that.

That is why the Stirling engine/electric motor hybrid should be used.


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IMM wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...


I have driven many turbo diesels. To get the equiv. performance to

normal

petrol engine you need a turbo. Floor a turbo diesel and the fuel
consumption rockets, floor a normal petrol and it doesn't. So much for
diesel economy.

Bollox. My petrol will do 6 miles to the gallon if floored. The diesel
does at least 10.


I'm talking about real cars.


It is a real car.




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IMM wrote:

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...

IMM wrote:


Only the other two cars are 'catted'.


You are a one household pollution machine.

but only when he drives them all at once!


I'm sure he lets them idle 24/7


No, I am the only thing that is idle 24/7 :-)



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IMM wrote:

"Chris Hodges" wrote in message
...

IMM wrote:

As has been pointed out elsewhere, much of the NOx from a petrol engine
is now dealt with by the cat, but how many not-cat petrol cars are still
around?


Few and far between. CATs have been standard since the early 1990s.

How

many cars over 10 years ld do you see around? In booming Britain, not

many

is there.

I would say OTTOMH ~5-10%. My wife's car is an H-reg 205, when cats
were still unusual, and so has dire warnings in the book not to use

leaded.

This is the first cat-equipped petrol car we've had.

Don't forget that cats only work properly when warm, and many if not
most journeys are oo short for that.


That is why the Stirling engine/electric motor hybrid should be used.



Yawbn. No that is why we should all sit at home and work from there and
let delivery drivers bring the shopping.



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RichardS noaccess@invalid wrote:

Certain classes of drag cars have long used ethanol ("funny cars", ISTR), so
there must be considerable performance gain from using it. Is it just
legeslative pressure that stops it being widely promoted as an alternative?

"Indy Cars" use methanol as a fuel. When it comes to racing there are
also issues surrounding the safety of the fuel and the risk of
spillages. The engines of such cars are specifically designed for the
fuel in question and only intended to last to the end of the race. Which
in the case of drag racing is measured in seconds.

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 23:33:39 +0100, Mark Evans wrote:

IIRC one way of reducing their production is by water injection, but
then you'd need to carry a large tank of water around in your car.

Doesn't seem to worry buses in China, they have huge tanks on the
roof. This water is required for the brakes, they fill the tanks
before starting the longer decents on the road between Lijiang and
Chengdu. How much water do you need to inject? Could it be emulsified
into the fuel, perhaps at the pump? Or even simply added in the
correct proportion at the pump into the fuel. The tank then having a
lowest point take off for the water and a higher one for the fuel.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Steve Firth wrote:

Grunff wrote:


Good point - but given the difference in cleanliness of the
output, ethanol still wins as a city fuel, no?


Dunno, I can't recall Brazilian cities being smog-free and they use
quite a bit of ethanol to run cars. I suppose it's a good choice if used
properly.



Its pretty much a fallacy. ANY IC engine is going to produce some NOx
type compounds, and these are some of the worst smog generators. S0x is
worse, but suphur can be removed from most fuels reasonably easily. (of
course those who use sulphuirtc acid to remove dyes from 'red' diesel,
and sell it on un refined to cheapskate Volvo owners are a different case)

If you go for lower temp combustion, you end up with lower cylinder
pressures and less overall efficiency, so although NOx goes down, CO2
goes up..well you can turbo charge to get round THAT I suppose, but even
so the efficiency is not all that good.

If you want a really clean burning engine, run it off liquid hydrogen
and liquid oxygen...and pray it doesn't go BOOM.

Of course the pollution generated in MAKING these is probably far
higher, but heck, you can put your power plants in Brazil, so LA stays
clean at least, and who cares about Brazilians anyway. :-)

N. Thornton wrote:

Mark Evans wrote in message ...

RichardS noaccess@invalid wrote:


Certain classes of drag cars have long used ethanol ("funny cars", ISTR), so
there must be considerable performance gain from using it. Is it just
legeslative pressure that stops it being widely promoted as an alternative?

"Indy Cars" use methanol as a fuel. When it comes to racing there are
also issues surrounding the safety of the fuel and the risk of
spillages. The engines of such cars are specifically designed for the
fuel in question and only intended to last to the end of the race. Which
in the case of drag racing is measured in seconds.



Thats some servicing schedule. IIRC the first commerical road going
cars had engine lives of around 12,000 miles. It wasnt a 12,00 mile
service but a 12,000 mile complete rebuild, with new parts. Things
have come a long way.



A top fuel dragster will, if lucky, do about 5 x 5 second burns. Many
fail spectacularly doing it. Most racers will only cane the engine
enough to beat the other guy.

A normal racing engine - F1 say - will usually do 5-10 races before
complete rebuild. Needless to say top teams with money to burn and
drivers who just want to win will run the revs up higher, and break them
quicker, so they usually get rebuilt pretty much every race.

Its not unlkown to see driver X with underfinanced team Y suddenly, at
about tehtime he wants to ghet into a decent team, suddenly put on a
performance that is way above what he normally delivers. The
commentators say 'why can't he do that all teh time, he ust havbe been
threatend with teh sack and wants to keep his place' Enlightened team
owners to whom he has already had a chat will know that he has just
RISKED the sack by taking his worn out old engine up to the redline to
show what he COULD do in a decent car...:-)





Regards, NT

Michael McNeil wrote:

Things such as crank shaft bearings were cast of solder in a
blacksmith's forge. They were the bane of all engines. The oil was
castor oil.
In sense big-end bearings stlll are solder, or at least white metal.
When you realise that in a modern small engine there are only a couple
of microns clearance inside the journal when it is firing, and the oil
is running at temperatures in excess of 300 degrees for an instant, you
wonder how the hell the things EVER worked.


Spark plugs were a joke and a fire hazard.

Didn't early engines ignite with a red hot tube, heated with an external
flame ? Or is that only on Benz's earliest engines.

Steve

Steve wrote:

Michael McNeil wrote:

Things such as crank shaft bearings were cast of solder in a
blacksmith's forge. They were the bane of all engines. The oil was
castor oil.
In sense big-end bearings stlll are solder, or at least white metal.
When you realise that in a modern small engine there are only a couple
of microns clearance inside the journal when it is firing, and the oil
is running at temperatures in excess of 300 degrees for an instant, you
wonder how the hell the things EVER worked.


Spark plugs were a joke and a fire hazard.

Didn't early engines ignite with a red hot tube, heated with an external
flame ? Or is that only on Benz's earliest engines.

Steve

Continually surprised that we are still using reciprocating
gasoline/diesel internal combustion engines for so many
applications. I had assumed (back in the late 1940s) that by now,
along with all the other developments, many spurred on by W.W.II,
some sort of turbine or 'jet' engine; i.e. a continuously
rotating energy converting device, would have replaced it!.
But today we still use em; for everything from lawnmowers to
Formula I cars.
Gas turbines didn't seem to 'catch on' even in commercial freight
haulage trucks. There are a few rotary engined cars around e.g.
Mazda RX-7, but the predominant engine style for vehicle
transportation and 'small engines' is still the four or two
stroke 'banger'.
Maybe fuel cells? Battery-electric? Any others?
Terry.
I just counted; Chainsaw, lawnmower, generator, small truck, old
truck, 2 x vintage car. Total 25 cylinders! Of course one can
only 'drive' one device at a time for d-i-y or transportation.
Oops, forgot snowblower, 26 cylinders!

(Michael McNeil) wrote in message . com...
(N. Thornton) wrote in message . com...

Thats some servicing schedule. IIRC the first commerical road going
cars had engine lives of around 12,000 miles. It wasnt a 12,00 mile
service but a 12,000 mile complete rebuild, with new parts. Things
have come a long way.

The days when cars shared the roads with horses made a life of 12,000
miles quite a long journey. Pushing an horse all day long would get
you thirty miles. You could do that in a car in a few hours and not
have to worry about the car's exhaustion.

The plain fact is people were not into travelling great distances in
those days.

The car could of course break down as and when, but the rule of the
road was that the next one along would stop to offer assistance.
Things such as crank shaft bearings were cast of solder in a
blacksmith's forge. They were the bane of all engines. The oil was
castor oil and the fuel was subject to whatever was available.

Carburettors were not exactly well set up, if you got a bang then it
was considered running well. Spark plugs were a joke and a fire
hazard. They had no cooling fans, just a giant radiator. Synchromesh
gear boxes had yet to be invented and clutch mechanisms were wierd and
wonderful. Connections were permanently rattling loose and the idea of
safe running specs and not overloading the cars etc were just not
considered by most users.


Illuminating details Michael. One more detail I could add is that at
least one of the earliest horseles carriages had spring-return
steering, such that the straightetning up of the wheels was effected
only by a spring. Needless to say it failed to straighten up now and
then...


Regards, NT

Terry wrote:

Steve wrote:

Michael McNeil wrote:


Things such as crank shaft bearings were cast of solder in a
blacksmith's forge. They were the bane of all engines. The oil was
castor oil.

In sense big-end bearings stlll are solder, or at least white metal.
When you realise that in a modern small engine there are only a couple
of microns clearance inside the journal when it is firing, and the oil
is running at temperatures in excess of 300 degrees for an instant, you
wonder how the hell the things EVER worked.


Spark plugs were a joke and a fire hazard.

Didn't early engines ignite with a red hot tube, heated with an external
flame ? Or is that only on Benz's earliest engines.

Steve


Continually surprised that we are still using reciprocating
gasoline/diesel internal combustion engines for so many
applications. I had assumed (back in the late 1940s) that by now,
along with all the other developments, many spurred on by W.W.II,
some sort of turbine or 'jet' engine; i.e. a continuously
rotating energy converting device, would have replaced it!.
But today we still use em; for everything from lawnmowers to
Formula I cars.
Gas turbines didn't seem to 'catch on' even in commercial freight
haulage trucks. There are a few rotary engined cars around e.g.
Mazda RX-7, but the predominant engine style for vehicle
transportation and 'small engines' is still the four or two
stroke 'banger'.


Trouble with turbine is throttle lag. HUGE throttle lag. Does NOT suit
car use at all - unless you go turbo-electric or summat, and use a
battery for short duration power needs and teh turbibne to charge and
keep the vehicle in cruise.

needless to say tha amount of investment needed to develop it outweighs
any cost advantage to the manufacturer (and its probably non existent)
and only benefits the consumer and the environment, at the expense of
the car manufacturer.

Need you be puzzled anymore? It would cost billions to repalce gearbox
manufactirers with electric generator and turbine manufaturers, and
build a decent gas turbine car.


Maybe fuel cells? Battery-electric? Any others?


I suspect we will start to see electric and hybrid - diesel electrics -
soon. Sure they exist, in the way that Blairs honour and veracity exists
- everybody knows someone who swears they saw it once, but no one can
recall seeing it themselves.


Terry.
I just counted; Chainsaw, lawnmower, generator, small truck, old
truck, 2 x vintage car. Total 25 cylinders! Of course one can
only 'drive' one device at a time for d-i-y or transportation.
Oops, forgot snowblower, 26 cylinders!


Hmm.

V8
Straight 5
3x4 cylinders
4x1 cylinder.

29 cylinders.

Steve Firth wrote:

Terry wrote:


I had assumed (back in the late 1940s) that by now,
along with all the other developments, many spurred on by W.W.II,
some sort of turbine or 'jet' engine; i.e. a continuously
rotating energy converting device, would have replaced it!.
But today we still use em; for everything from lawnmowers to
Formula I cars.


Gas turbines are not suited to the power delivery characteristics needed
for driving a car. Nor TBH are they particularly clean unless running on
methane.

Rotary engines in the form of the Wankel engine are available for use in
cars, have some advantages (such as being able to rev to very high
limits) but suffer from poor fuel consumption and a lack of torque.

Lack of torque is also the major headache with turbines. this may be
overcome by using a hybrid design with a turbine operating a generator
and the final drive being by electric motor however the weight of the
batteries and motors make this less attractive than it would appear at
first sight.



You can always trade torque for RPM with a reduction gear. Power is all
that counts - not torque per se.

Power, and flexibility. Turbines are very much one speed engines, and
the Wankel is problematic in terms of its wear rate and expense of
production as much as anything else. Coupled to a suitable gearbox, it
will propel a car as fast as anything else. I used to see those things
racing in formual atlantic cars. FAST.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Steve wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Trouble with turbine is throttle lag. HUGE throttle lag.


Do you mean the power curve, or is there a very long exponential
repsonse to a step function ?


the latter.

Listen to any jet engine spooling up. Takes about a minute. Turboprops
cope with variable pitch props. Real jets have a fair old time of it -
up to a point they can modulate THRUST by feeding in fuel, but when
the turboine power is coming from mecahnical drive off teh turbine
shaft, its a bad job all round.

To get a turbine to work in a car, you need something other than a
mechanical transmission. Or at least something more sophisticated
than a gearbox.

What about a turbine feeding a CVT ? Or use electric drive and use the
turbine as a charger?

--
James...
http://www.jameshart.co.uk/

In article ,
Dave Liquorice wrote:

Doesn't seem to worry buses in China, they have huge tanks on the
roof. This water is required for the brakes, they fill the tanks
before starting the longer decents on the road between Lijiang
and Chengdu. How much water do you need to inject? Could it be
emulsified into the fuel, perhaps at the pump? Or even simply
added in the correct proportion at the pump into the fuel. The
tank then having a lowest point take off for the water and a
higher one for the fuel.

Years ago there was a gizmo you could buy (often offered in E&M)
that fed steam into the air intake of the carb. It was a water
bottle feeding down to a copper coil wound around the exhaust
pipe, and then up to the air cleaner.

--
Tony Williams.

Steve Firth wrote:

Lack of torque is also the major headache with turbines. this may be
overcome by using a hybrid design with a turbine operating a generator
and the final drive being by electric motor however the weight of the
batteries and motors make this less attractive than it would appear at
first sight.

The nearest to this would be a diesel-electric locomotive,
but they use conventional diesel engines to drive generators.

The most common usage of gas turbines is aircraft, with some
usage in ship propulsion.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Steve Firth wrote:

Lack of torque is also the major headache with turbines. this may be
overcome by using a hybrid design with a turbine operating a generator
and the final drive being by electric motor however the weight of the
batteries and motors make this less attractive than it would appear at
first sight.



You can always trade torque for RPM with a reduction gear. Power is all

Which is how such engines are used in turbo-prop aircraft and
helicopters.

that counts - not torque per se.

Steve wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Trouble with turbine is throttle lag. HUGE throttle lag.

Do you mean the power curve, or is there a very long exponential
repsonse to a step function ?

It means that the output of the engine changes after the throttle
has been changed. Which isn't the kind of behaviour people expect
from a car engine. (Possibly even those familiar with piloting
jet aircraft would have problems driving a car which behaved in
this way.)

Do you mean the power curve, or is there a very long exponential
repsonse to a step function ?

The latter. It can take up to 20 seconds for a turbofan to reach full power.
This would not be good for overtaking. However, this is somewhat misleading.

The lag can be countered for by careful design of the transmission. This is
because it is the acceleration of the components that takes time, not the
variation in input power, which can be changed rapidly by varying fuel flow.

Power can be varied much more rapidly if the engine is allowed to rotate at
constant speed. This enables their use in helicopters and provides much
better control in turboprops, where power can be almost instananeously
altered with the use of variable pitch (constant speed) propellors.

In a land vehicle application, the use of a variable speed transmission
would have a similar effect. Instant acceleration would consist of rapidly
increasing the fuel flow and adjusting the transmission to keep the engine
at the constant speed (coordinated by a FADEC). Response to the throttle
would be determined by the transmission's ability to immediately adjust
ratio, not the response of the engine.

Obviously, total acceleration is limited by the total fuel flow that can be
pumped into the engine. If this is exceeded (but ratio adjusted regardless),
the engine will slow down. This could be beneficial, though. There would be
some ability to get extra "overtaking" boost by accepting a certain LP shaft
reduction. This might allow a smaller engine for the same application.

I think the real problems with turbine land vehicles would be cost,
gyroscopic effects and safety considerations from the high energy contained
in the rotating engine structure (uncontained engine failures, crash
worthiness etc.).

Christian.

In article ,
"Christian McArdle" wrote:


I think the real problems with turbine land vehicles would be cost,
gyroscopic effects and safety considerations from the high energy contained
in the rotating engine structure (uncontained engine failures, crash
worthiness etc.).

Excuse my ignorance, but how does all this relate to Mazda's rotary car
engine?

Peter

--
Peter Ashby
School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland
To assume that I speak for the University of Dundee is to be deluded.
Reverse the Spam and remove to email me.

I did it yesterday - put about 4 gallons of unleaded into my LDV200 (sherpa) and topped up with about 3 gallons of diesel. There was probably 2-3 gallons already in. OK for a few miles then very slow and smoky in 1st and 2nd, better in 3rd and 4th - not chanced 5th!
Been trying to find out if adding engine oil, or some form of pure mineral oil (or olive oil a la biodiesel) would help lube the pumps and make the mix more diesel-like, and if so in what ratio to the petrol?
Worried.

On Sun, 4 Sep 2005 16:38:23 +0100, elgorrion
wrote:

I did it yesterday - put about 4 gallons of unleaded into my LDV200
(sherpa) and topped up with about 3 gallons of diesel. There was
probably 2-3 gallons already in. OK for a few miles then very slow and
smoky in 1st and 2nd, better in 3rd and 4th - not chanced 5th!

2 Possibilities.

1) The performance deteriorated as the diesel fuel in the lines and
filters got replaced by petrol/diesel mixture which did not burn as
predicted in the design of the engine causing pre-ignition,
detonation, or whatever.

2) The performance deteriorated because the petrol in the mix had
damaged the pump/injectors.



Been trying to find out if adding engine oil, or some form of pure
mineral oil (or olive oil a la biodiesel) would help lube the pumps and
make the mix more diesel-like, and if so in what ratio to the petrol?

FWIU in summer, the cheapest veg oil is more or less equivalent to
diesel, at least as far as half a tank goes. Proprietory motor oil
includes additives that might not agree with seals in the fuel system.

If there's room in the tank why not add more diesel, (Why start
experimenting with veg oil at a time like this?).

Better still, try and make room in the tank by removing all but half a
gallon or so of contaminated fuel, (To avoid getting air in the fuel
system) then filling right up with diesel. If you are parsimonious
the fuel so removed could be used over time at a rate of say a
gallon/tankful.

Intuitively I'd expect it to cause less damage if it was left ticking
over whilst it purged the contaminated fuel from the lines/filters
etc. rather than thrashed down the Motorway. ;-)

Worried.

Let us know how you get on.

DG

"Derek ^" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 4 Sep 2005 16:38:23 +0100, elgorrion
wrote:

I did it yesterday - put about 4 gallons of unleaded into my LDV200
(sherpa) and topped up with about 3 gallons of diesel. There was
probably 2-3 gallons already in. OK for a few miles then very slow and
smoky in 1st and 2nd, better in 3rd and 4th - not chanced 5th!

2 Possibilities.

1) The performance deteriorated as the diesel fuel in the lines and
filters got replaced by petrol/diesel mixture which did not burn as
predicted in the design of the engine causing pre-ignition,
detonation, or whatever.

2) The performance deteriorated because the petrol in the mix had
damaged the pump/injectors.


It was (still is?) common practice to put upto 30% petrol in diesel cars to
stop waxing in very cold weather.
Isn't this what winter diesel is anyway?

MartinC Wrote:
Can I expect any bad effects from adding (accidentally) approx 10% (6
litres in 60) unleaded petrol to a diesel engine car.
TIA


Did you know that contaminated fuel like this is Free
All you need do is replace your engine with a
Rolls-Royce K60 :-)

-

elgorrion wrote:
MartinC Wrote:
Can I expect any bad effects from adding (accidentally) approx
10% (6 litres in 60) unleaded petrol to a diesel engine car.
TIA
I did it yesterday - put about 4 gallons of unleaded into my
LDV200 (sherpa) and topped up with about 3 gallons of diesel.
There was probably 2-3 gallons already in. OK for a few miles
then very slow and smoky in 1st and 2nd, better in 3rd and 4th -
not chanced 5th!
Been trying to find out if adding engine oil, or some form of pure
mineral oil (or olive oil a la biodiesel) would help lube the
pumps and make the mix more diesel-like, and if so in what ratio
to the petrol? Worried.

10% in a rugged old Sherpa? It'll be fine.

Steve Walker wrote:

I did it yesterday - put about 4 gallons of unleaded into my
LDV200 (sherpa) and topped up with about 3 gallons of diesel.
There was probably 2-3 gallons already in. OK for a few miles


10% in a rugged old Sherpa? It'll be fine.

4 gallons out of 10 in total sounds more like 40% to me ;-)

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Steve Walker wrote:

elgorrion wrote:

MartinC Wrote:

Can I expect any bad effects from adding (accidentally) approx
10% (6 litres in 60) unleaded petrol to a diesel engine car.
TIA

I did it yesterday - put about 4 gallons of unleaded into my
LDV200 (sherpa) and topped up with about 3 gallons of diesel.
There was probably 2-3 gallons already in. OK for a few miles
then very slow and smoky in 1st and 2nd, better in 3rd and 4th -
not chanced 5th!
Been trying to find out if adding engine oil, or some form of pure
mineral oil (or olive oil a la biodiesel) would help lube the
pumps and make the mix more diesel-like, and if so in what ratio
to the petrol? Worried.


10% in a rugged old Sherpa? It'll be fine.


I'd say so as well
Just keep topping up with diesel till she runs adequately, then run her
to nearly empty.

On Sun, 04 Sep 2005 22:12:40 +0100, dennis@home
wrote:


It was (still is?) common practice to put upto 30% petrol in diesel cars
to
stop waxing in very cold weather.
Isn't this what winter diesel is anyway?

It was normally paraffin used for wax-proofing diesel and the Excisemen
could be very cross with you for this. Another genius method was to light
a fire under the fuel tank of a truck. Winter diesel is normally a
lower-boiling cut of the distillate which does not particularly carry the
alkanes present in petrol, more paraffin sized ones. In fact chromatograms
of distillate fuels show a characteristic bell-curve shape across the
peaks as in

http://www.sge.com/pdfs_local/applic...m/PET%2006.pdf

the Winter diesel I worked with carried a double peak, suggesting strongly
that it was a blend of two distillates, one being in the standard diesel
range of carbon numbers, and the other being slightly on the heavy side of
paraffin.

John Schmitt

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Just keep topping up with diesel till she runs adequately, then run her
to nearly empty.

And sell to the highest bidder.


--
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